Fitness Game: The Push Up Game

The Push up is an exercise that effectively works the chest, shoulders, arms and core muscle groups. Push ups can help with maintain good posture.

Here is one game that can help you develop good push up form and help you do more push ups. This game is widely known as: “The Push up game.”

How to Perform a Proper Push up

To Perform a proper push up, your body should form a generally straight line. Feet need to be no more than 12 inches apart. Hands can be placed where comfortable.

While in the ‘Up’ Position, your arms should be straight but, do not lock your elbows. While in the ‘Down’ position, your upper arms should be parallel with the ground. This is sometimes referred to as ‘breaking the plane.’

Too easy, right?!

What is the Push up game?

There are a few different versions of the Push up game. Some use multiple playing card decks and high repetitions for face cards. All versions are great workouts and a lot of fun to play.

The version we will be focusing on today is an easy group version of the push up game, where each player draws one card from the top of the deck and the whole group performs the type of push up and repetitions in accordance to the card’s suit and number. (For example: If the card drawn is the Four of Diamonds, then the group must perform four diamond/close hand push ups.)

Performing Push ups from the knees is a good starting point for beginners or those of us who haven’t done push ups in a while.

Do NOT forget to stretch before and after this game.

The winner of the game is the player who lasts the longest. Players are eliminated when they are no longer able to perform push ups.

Which Suit Represents Which Style Of Push Up?

The correlation between the style of pushup for each suit of cards, can vary depending on who you talk with. None of them are wrong, so don’t be afraid to switch it up every once in a while and try something new, or toughen up your work out with different styles of push ups as you progress.

Suits & Push up Styles

Spades = Wide Arm Push ups

Diamonds = Diamond (also known as Close Hand) Push ups

Clubs = Staggered Push ups

Hearts = Normal or Regular Push ups

Repetitions & Numbers

Numbered Cards = Repetitions coincide with the number on the card.

Face Cards = 10-15 Reps

Aces = Either 1 Rep, 15 Reps, or 20-25 Reps (This is up to you, it is very difficult to do a higher number of repetitions, so precautions should be taken if a player is unaccustomed to doing a large number of push ups, as injury can occur with this type of exercise.)

Jokers = 20-25 Reps (Jokers are optional and can be removed during early sessions of game play.)

What you need to play

-1 deck of playing cards (Completing an entire deck in one game is NOT required.)

-Room to play (Enough room for you and friends to perform different kinds of push ups.)

-Shuffle the deck of cards and place the deck where everyone playing can see it.

-Draw a card from the top of the deck and show the other players the card or announce the card number and suit. Once the card has been shown or announced, place the card face up next to the deck and perform the correct repetition(s) and style of push ups.

(Note: When playing for long periods of time, ensure that each player is staying hydrated and make sure that all players have 20-30 seconds of recovery time before each new drawing.)

-Continue drawing cards. You can have each player take turns drawing cards, nominate one player to draw all cards during the game or even have each player call out another player to draw a new card.

Again, the winner is the last player who is still able to perform proper push ups.